GaGA!Growing and Getting Awesome… the Official Loving the Pregnant You Blog

How to Make the Unfun Fun

We’re trying a different summer camp, and the kids are not loving it. Now I know they are OK. They have interesting stories to tell, safety is a focus, and they are hanging out with a diverse group of friends.

It’s also provided an opportunity for us to explore how to make your own fun inside of circumstances you don’t like. One morning I asked my 6-year-old to be on the lookout for every little thing that he liked about camp. Honestly, I wasn’t sure he’d remember. He tends to be a wonderfully in-the-moment kid. To my delight, he marched up to me at pick up and declared, “I have 2 things on my list! Sports in the morning and… I can’t remember the other one!” Ha! Awesome! He was all smiles and reported it a good day.

His 8-year-old sister and I went a little deeper. She made a commitment one day to have as much fun as she possibly could. We talked about ideas like skipping and humming a tune. At the end of that day, I was impressed when she pulled a small notebook out of her backpack (didn’t know that was there!) with a list of things she’d done to have fun. She hadn’t wanted to forget. Neatly written out (see picture!) were actions such as: “I smiled a lot.” “I made the most of my swim lesson.” and “I played all the games.” She declared it the best day ever at camp!